Category Archives: Washington DC

Rendering The Spirit: Selectees Announced!

I’m very pleased and thrilled to announce the entrants whose work has been accepted into the Rendering The Spirit: The Personal Image in Alternative Media exhibition at Glen Echo Photoworks. We accepted twelve artists showing a very diverse range of subject matter and technique, from wet plate collodion to photogravure to lumen prints. The exhibit is also very geographically diverse – works are coming from Texas, the Washington DC area, Switzerland, Germany and Japan.

The honored artists are:

Atalie Day Brown (Maryland)
Barbara Maloney (Maryland)
Bruce Schultz (Louisiana)
Dan Schlapbach (Maryland)
Erik Larsen (Colorado)
Eddie Hirschfield (Virginia)
Hendrik Faure (Germany)
Ian Leake (Switzerland)
John Sarsgard (New York)
Leena Jayaswal (Maryland)
Marek Matusz (Texas)
Yugo Ito (Japan)

A few featured works from the exhibition:

Causes of the Seasons - Dan Schlapbach
Causes of the Seasons – Dan Schlapbach

14×17 inches, digital relievo wet plate collodion ambrotype. There is a digital print behind the glass ambrotype image, creating a relief like a traditional relievo ambrotype

Portrait of Jared - Atalie Brown
Portrait of Jared – Atalie Brown

8×10 inch tintype (direct-positive, wet-collodion on aluminum plate)

Venus Rising - Ian Leake
Venus Rising – Ian Leake

11×14 Palladiotype on Herschel paper

Indian Bride Barbie 3 - Leena Jayaswal
Indian Bride Barbie 3 – Leena Jayaswal

11×14 inch lumen print

More Memories of Summer

This trio of Lotus seed pods might look a little odd to those in the know- they’re not exactly in their native habitat. I was wandering the trails at Kenilworth, saw these three had fallen while still full of seeds, and picked them up to make a still-life. I re-planted them in the muddy bank of a lily pond to create this grouping.

Lotus Pod Trio
Lotus Pod Trio

This cat-o-nine-tails at full fluff presented itself to me at the edge of another one of the ponds.

Cat-o-Nine-Tails
Cat-o-Nine-Tails

Reminder of Summers Past and Future

I finally got around to scanning and uploading these shots from Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens I took back in the waning days of summer. Now’s the perfect time to bring them out as it’s descending into freezing temperatures here, as a reminder of the golden light and radiant heat that we love to complain about while we’re in the middle of it, but deeply miss when it’s gone.

Lotus Leaf
Lotus Leaf
African Lilies
African Lilies

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you’ve seen me post other photos (and the odd video!) from Kenilworth. If you’re at all a fan of aquatic plants, Kenilworth is well worth the visit, as they have acres of lily ponds, lotus plants, cat-o-nine-tails and other species that grow in wet and marshy environments. In addition to the flowering plants, Kenilworth is a great place to go for wildlife – everything from dragonflies to frogs to turtles to herons and even supposedly a beaver family can be found there. And the amazing thing is that it’s not only in the middle of a city, but in the middle of a rough part of the city. Enter the gardens and you think you’re in some vast national park riverine oasis, not three miles as the crow flies from the United States Capitol building.

Sunrise

This was the sunrise that greeted me this morning. What a beautiful way to start the day.

Sunrise
Sunrise

Canon EOS 5D Mk.1, 24-105 L @ 50mm.

The Things You Don’t See…

The things you don’t see until you look. I have only ever passed this fountain in the daytime and had no idea it was so beautiful at night.
 

 

Satellite Room

Just another little snippet of my neighborhood in Washington DC: the Satellite Room, a small bar/club on the back side of the 9:30 Club.

Satellite Room
Satellite Room

You can see behind it the massive structure of the Atlantic Plumbing building, which will house a new outpost of the Landmark Theaters chain in addition to residential condos. Landmark Theaters specialize in independent, foreign and classic films, and this will be their third location in DC itself, with an additional location in Bethesda and one in Baltimore. Just another sign of the massive gentrification of the area – ten years ago it was a rare-for-DC industrial area with a few bombed-out row houses scattered between. Now it’s high-end theaters with bar service and million-dollar condos.

Satellite Room
Satellite Room

Clubs like the 9:30, the Satellite Room and Town helped pioneer the neighborhood making it desirable as a location to visit. With the more recent addition of Nellie’s (just across the street on 9th where U Street turns back into Florida Avenue)

Nellies Sports Bar, From Florida Avenue
Nellies Sports Bar, From Florida Avenue

and The Brixton, even the former dive bars have been cleaning up their acts and getting wine lists and 18 year old Scotch.

Kenilworth Aquatic Garden: Turtle Video

A turtle grabbing some lunch in one of the ponds at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington DC. I know I don’t shoot or post much video, but this was a nice, short clip I shot this afternoon that I wanted to share. Shot on my iPhone 6.

Kim Jong Un comes to DC

As seen in my neighborhood. Wheat-paste cutouts are becoming a new form of eco-friendly/sustainable/non-destructive graffiti. In this one, Kim Jong Un’s face has taken up residence on the wall of a building near the 9:30 Club.

Kim Jong Un Wall
Kim Jong Un Wall

Just because it’s gone hipster doesn’t mean graffiti has lost its edge for political and social commentary. Kim’s collar proclaims him “Smear Leader”.

Smear Leader
Smear Leader

69 Seconds

A sidewalk in Georgetown on M Street, with the waning sun going down and casting very long shadows on a late summer evening. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why the title is “69 Seconds”.

69 Seconds
69 Seconds

Last Days of Summer

This was from the weekend before Labor Day, when it was still hot, the sun stayed up longer, and it still felt like summer wasn’t going to end. This boy was playing in the fountain at the Georgetown riverfront park. He stepped out to take a break and basked in the sun to dry off. I can remember that kind of in-the-moment joy of lying on a warm rock after swimming in cold water, just being there and experiencing it, without a thought for the past or the future. I need to do that again some time, soon.

Drying Off
Drying Off